N.B.A.

N.B.A.; Hornets Ready to Celebrate Their Debut

By SAM GOLDAPER

Published: November 4, 1988

The celebrations begin tonight in Charlotte, N.C. Fireworks will burst, the Charlotte Symphony will play and many in the capacity crowd of 23,000 attending the Hornets' first regular-season game at the new coliseum will be wearing tuxedos. There will be commemorative opening-night tickets encased in Lucite for all and a teal flower, to match the team colors, for each woman attending the game against the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Welcome to the opening of the National Basketball Association's 43d season. There will be 10 games tonight, the first of 171 days of regular-season play, which will be followed by about 60 more days of playoffs until the champion is decided in June.

The Miami Heat, the other expansion franchise, the San Antonio Spurs, the Washington Bullets, the Sacramento Kings and the Golden State Warriors, all of whom appear to be headed for the draft lottery, open tomorrow night.

Tonight, the Knicks will be in Boston to play the Celtics. The Nets, with Joe Barry Carroll, their new center, play host to the Atlanta Hawks. In Dallas, the Los Angeles Lakers will meet the Mavericks and begin their quest for a third consecutive championship as a retirement gift for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. New Faces in New Places

At Chicago Stadium, Michael Jordan, voted the league's most valuable player and best defensive player last season, will begin his attempt for a third consecutive scoring title, last accomplished in 1980 by George Gervin of the San Antonio Spurs.

Attention will be focused on the array of new faces in new places, especially Moses Malone and Reggie Theus, who joined the Hawks, where they, along with Dominique Wilkins, will give the Hawks three players who averaged 72.6 points last season.

In other changes, Tom Chambers is in Phoenix, not in Seattle; Walt Davis will be scoring for Denver, rather than the Suns; Charles Oakley will be piling up rebounds for the Knicks, not the Bulls, and Bill Cartwright will be in the low post for Chicago, not the Knicks. Orlando Woolridge is in Los Angeles, not with the Nets; Michael Cage will be rebounding for Seattle, not the Los Angeles Clippers; Otis Thorpe is on Houston's front line, not Sacramento's; Wayne (Tree) Rollins will be blocking shots for Cleveland, not the Hawks, and Kelly Tripucka will be piling up points for the Hornets instead of languishing on the Utah Jazz bench. #10th Season for Bird The Celtics, entering the 10th season of the Larry Bird era, still count heavily on him, along with Kevin McHale, Robert Parish, Danny Ainge and Dennis Johnson. But the Celtics' Jimmy Rodgers, one of the seven new coaches in the league, unlike his predecessor, K. C. Jones, is expected to use his reserves more to avoid the playoff fatigue the aging Celtics encountered last season in their elimination from the Eastern Conference playoffs by the Detroit Pistons.

While the Mavericks are basically the same team, except that Detlef Schrempf will open the season on the injured list, the Lakers, staying with the starting five of Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, James Worthy, A. C. Green and Byron Scott, have changed their supporting cast to the point where Coach Pat Riley said, ''This could be our deepest bench in nine years.'' Besides having Tony Campbell available for the entire season and signing Woolridge as an unrestricted free agent, they have added David Rivers, their top draft choice, and Mark McNamara.